Poland to study key Iranian oil field

Deputy Managing Director of NIOC for Development and Engineering Affairs Gholamreza Manouchehri (L) shakes hands with PGNiG CEO Piotr Wozniak after signing a key contract in Tehran. (Photo by Shana)

Iran has awarded a project to study one of its key western oil fields to Poland in what could provide the country with a strong footing in the lucrative oil industry of the Islamic Republic.

Iran’s media reported that the project which concerns studying Sumar oil field was awarded to Poland’s state owned oil and gas company Polskie Górnictwo Naftowe i Gazownictwo (PGNiG).

PGNiG CEO Piotr Wozniak accordingly signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Gholamreza Manouchehri, the deputy managing director of National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC).

Based on the MoU, the Polish company will conduct primary studies on Sumar oil field which is located in the western province of Kermanshah and is jointly shared by Iran and Iraq, Shana reported.

Sumar oil field was discovered in 2009 and is believed to hold an in-place reserve of 475 million barrels of which 70 million barrels is recoverable.

PGNiG last year announced interest in Iran’s oil and gas market.

“We are interested in the Iranian market (…) and we are considering various business configurations there,” the company’s former chief Mariusz Zawisza told Reuters in an interview last November.

PGNiG was previously engaged in talks with the NIOC over the development of Lavan gas field. However, Iran’s Ministry of Petroleum announced in late 2011 that it had dropped the Polish firm from the project over its delays to get the project off the ground.

The target of the project which was valued at between $5-7 billion was to produce 30 million cubic feet of natural gas on a daily basis.